


Driven Like

by SilviaKundera



Category: Popslash
Genre: Boyband, M/M, Magical Realism, NSYNC - Freeform, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-09
Updated: 2003-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilviaKundera/pseuds/SilviaKundera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JC sort of blossomed since NSYNC's awkward start, like a fabulous gay butterfly. So. um. This one is about how JC is creepy. Trust me to make his rebirth into a sorta of horror story with romance. [Written circa 2003, prior to band break up]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driven Like

  


_Still night, nothing for miles,  
White curtain come down,  
Kill the lights in the middle of the road  
And take a look around..._

 

* * *

One morning, it didn't seem like morning. It seemed like half past noon, with sun streaking orange shine across the sky. Something hit the windows, something bright, and JC hopped up the steps of the bus. There was a glint behind him, sneaking over his shoulder, and his neck bowed low as he shuffled towards the back. And Justin stopped screeching and Chris stopped snapping a rolled newspaper into his neck and time stood still. Because JC was beautiful.

"Uh. Whoa," Justin said.

Chris found that to be a pretty accurate description, and he might have said it too - except Justin had just said it for him. He nodded, and flicked up his wrist, the paper, and let it fall down.

"Um," Justin said, and cocked his head.

And Chris had a weird thought - weird because, well, JC was _beautiful_.

He thought, ' _something is wrong_.'

* * *

"Do you like it?" JC smiled soft, and his thigh was warm and seeping into Chris' thigh.

He curved his neck into Chris' shoulder, and slid along his side, and it was really very nice to have JC like this in his new beautiful way. Because-- because of something he couldn't put into words. He thought maybe that everything beautiful people did was sensual. sexy. So this, this was hot now, and more that it could have been.

"What?" Chris said, because 'it' could mean a lot of things. "Uh. The hair? Yeah, it's nice."

JC's breath swelled up against his neck, and slid smoothly back again. It felt like waves, rocking against and around this throat. "Yeah. um. right."

The wave hit again, and he was feeling oddly seasick.

* * *

The hair kissed JC's cheeks like it couldn't stand not to - as if JC were in love with himself. It drifted a lot, couldn't seem to keep still, and teased Chris' eyes. It forced the world to move, to follow it. And the world did, enthralled.

He wanted to touch it, when he glanced JC's way, and his fingers got this tingle in their tips at the thought of pushing the curving strands back behind JC's ears. Chris' brain was saying that he could stroke soft soft smooth earlobe, and slide down to touch that skin behind, and maybe lick at it awhile. But he didn't; he never did more than hover near the hair, though he wasn't quite sure why.

JC's skin made Chris think _cocoon_ , made the word trickle across his synapses and bleed through until he couldn't think any other word at all. He blinked, and watched it be overtaken by raw glossy sheen, melted over JC's skin like baby oil.

But then, cocoon made him think "butterfly", and wasn't that kind of girly? Kind of how JC shouldn't be?

Chris wasn't sure.

* * *

Bobbie seemed to like JC a whole lot more now, because she was always calling, and Chris could hear her voice sparkle and crackle through the line. It was that loud.

"Dude," Joey said, "She's flying out for booty call."

"And then you woke up." Justin snatched the remote off Joey's leg, and rolled his eyes.

But she did.

 

* * *

Everyone seemed to like JC, and talk about him, and talk _to_ him - to, to, never listened. They hunched forward across tables and sneaked in a few steps closer than they should. Carson actually pretended to listen when he asked JC questions. And JC got asked. A lot.

There were magazine articles, and better angles in photo shoots, and blushing interviewers who forgot to flip on their tape recorders because they were too busy tracing every graceful movement with their eyes.

* * *

JC didn't look in the mirror much - which was odd, because JC had always liked pretty things.

JC's eyes skated quickly past any reflective surface, and his head jerked towards the carpet, fixed on slick wooden polished floor.

The bathroom was suddenly ten times easier to get into, though that didn't really make much sense. Justin swore it was new skin cream "and some special hair mud and shit", but Chris would _think_ that he'd never get JC out of that room. He'd think that JC would be primping and plucking and anointing his body every which way. But it was as if JC just woke up looking that way. JC was just naturally exquisitely beautiful.

Chris bet it was really pissing Justin off.

He almost spit out, "what the fuck?" a dozen times, but then he'd have follow that up with something. And that was probably why Justin was all silent about it too.

For dancing, there **had** to be mirrors, and Chris thought everything would just sort itself out - because, _hello_ necessity - but he was wrong. JC closed his eyes during rehearsals, pressing the lids tightly shut. The lids wrinkled and calmed as JC mouthed the count, and he seemed to visualize it in his head.

The mirrors still made him nervous, though, because as soon as Wade barked, "And done!", JC would scurry out the door.

* * *

JC strode quickly past, as usual, sandals clacking against the hotel's smooth marble floor. And Chris saw his hand reach out - saw it, felt it, couldn't understand why - and close around JC's slick elbow. Slick, like a newborn's skin. Open and wet. And something was wrong, wrong, wrong about this, Chris' brain said; but he ignored it, he was good at not listening and not paying attention. Chris' fingers twitched, and slid up to grab cloth covered shoulders.

"Dude, just. Look," Chris said, and flexed his arms tense and strong. JC's body whipped towards the right but his feet only skidded, and he really was no match for determination; a pattering rabbit heart wasn't going to get the job done. "Look." Chris yanked one hand up to hold JC's chin forward, and shook it a little back and forth. "Look, man. Nothing bad there. You're, like, totally hot. You're fucking gorgeous, okay? Enjoy it."

Feet stilled, and JC went limp across his chest. Chris could feel the sigh rumble through JC's torso and twist back deep within his own belly, and maybe that meant he'd been a little mean and he should be sorry. But he wasn't.

JC shivered, suddenly, and gave something close to a mewl. And it hurt to hear that, so Chris' fingers snapped back. JC flopped over to cling baby-orphaned-monkey like to Chris' stomach, neck, arms, and Chris wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to do, but he decided to rub his palm over the center of JC's back. His palms were damp anyway, so he could just use the t-shirt to wipe them off, and yes, he really wasn't fooling anybody.

"Because I don't," JC's forehead creased - Chris could feel it against his throat. "I-- I don't see this. I see myself."

"You. uh. What?"

But JC was straightening, then - edging stiffly backwards - and Chris couldn't even say it was really a bad thing, because he was getting sea sick again. JC's eyes were like mirrors, when Chris tried to meet them, and he couldn't see anything to hold tight, anything that was gonna save anyone. And he thought, maybe, he understood.

* * *

The camera bulbs were flashing, and the reporters were a sea of movement and sharp anxious breaths and babble, so he didn't notice JC fall - no one did. And he couldn't hear the thump that JC must have made against the ground. He didn't notice anything but Johnny, signaling that the questions were becoming too pointed. Chris was closing off, boarding up, preparing to bright smile their way out the door and into the car.

But then Johnny's jaw seemed to unhinge, and he took a shaky step back. And Joey said, " _fuck_ , oh fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me," and made this thick graveled choking noise in the back of his throat.

And Chris didn't want to look. He tightened the muscles in his back, and worked on shredding his palms with blunt nails, and refused to turn around until Lance yanked hard at his shoulder. And he was spinning. His feet worked frantically against the ground, but his center of gravity was -

Falling,

falling,

falling.

He hit, with a sharp crack to his side, in the same moment that Lance used shaking hands to drape JC's arm around his neck.

* * *

"So what was that back there?"

JC turned over on his side, rubbing his cheek deeper into the pillow. Chris thought of going to the front, maybe distract Justin - steal the remote control - but he knew that, pretty much, this conversation was going to have to happen. So it might as well be right then, since he was standing there and all.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey..." He poked a little for good measure, and sat himself firmly down on the couch.

JC frowned, and wiggled closer to the wall. "I, uh, fainted."

"Well, _yeah_ ," Chris said, because _duh_.

"Okay, so. what?" JC said, and rolled over to face Chris' jittery thighs.

Chris tried to give a look that said, 'I know everything, so just give it up,' but he didn't really have a clue, so that was kind of hard to project. He thought he might have accomplished, 'I am trying very hard to look like I know what I'm doing.' And that probably didn't help much.

There was a soft sigh, and the heat of JC's breath sneaked through Chris' jeans. "It was just it was too-- I couldn't take it."

"Dude, we--" Chris shook his head, and reached over to smooth hair back from JC's solemn face. but stopped. He really didn't want to. "We do this shit all the time. We've been, like, _doing_ this shit. For years. It wasn't like something new or big or."

"But it _was_ , all right?" JC said, and then he didn't say anything anymore.

* * *

Chris wasn't sure when JC had started stumbling so much. He tried to sift back through days, weeks, but he couldn't fix a point; only knew that it was a lately kind of thing. JC hadn't always been so. Fragile. He used to blaze into a room, instead of trip.

Faint bruises ghosted over his ankles and the backs of his calves, but maybe JC couldn't tell, because it wasn't until Joey bent down and tried to stroke that JC started wearing those pants a lot.

Maybe the long, hanging jeans had something to do with the constant bumps and falls.

But Chris didn't think so.

* * *

Justin sort of... _happened_ one night.

Justin didn't show up for dinner, and JC didn't show up for dinner, and no one was looking anyone else in the eye. They didn't talk it about - which was good, because he wouldn't know what to say.

He'd probably say, "sorry," because he was.

They didn't look like they'd had a very good time.

* * *

JC wouldn't stop staring in the mirror the next morning - he was there when Chris used the master key on his door, and the tilt of his head said that he'd been there for hours. The carpet seemed to crackle under Chris' feet - it was that _quiet_ \- and he winced, looked down as if watching would make him as hushed as the room. Still, yet moving - like the air.

"Don't do that, don't do that C," he found himself saying, and didn't worry about the fact that this was exactly what he had wanted. He'd been wrong - like everything was these days.

"I don't know how," JC said. It crackled like the carpet.

Chris cupped JC's waist from behind, pressed up against his back, ignored the swell and drag in his stomach. "Don't, don't."

JC said nothing for awhile, and they watched, and JC was beautiful.

And then JC blinked, and said, "He's not me," almost too soft to hear.

"Okay, so--"

"No." JC shook, no, _tossed_ his head. "You just." His pretty lips smiled, and they didn't look right for the sounds that came out. "You don't _get_ it. This is not me. It's **not me**."

"Okay, okay!" Chris held his hands up, because surrender surrender. 'He's' not you. You're not you."

"Chris. Look at me." JC left the mirror, and turned.

So he looked, and JC lurched sideways and Chris had to blink. And squint, because.

JC was JC again.

He blinked. The gloss. Squint. JC.

He got the fuck out that room, and didn't look back.

* * *

"Chris."

"No."

He ended up leaving rooms a lot, and sleeping.

* * *

"Chris."

"You're in my dreams," he said, and kept facing the wall.

"Oh," JC cleared his throat, and it was like silk sliding over wood.

"Cut it out."

They were more like nightmares.

* * *

JC cornered him, finally, because he had patience. And he'd stolen the key to Chris' room.

"Just wait, and - No! No! Stop! Just-- stay," JC said, and pressed perfect slender fingers against Chris' chest, and then Chris wasn't going anywhere at all - unless he could learn real fast how to walk through walls.

Maybe he should ask JC about that.

"Um. It's." JC didn't appear to know what to say now that he had Chris' attention, so he shifted from side to side and his grip relaxed, and Chris almost escaped. Except JC looked so _earnest_ \-- even if he _was_ some weird alien thing that was always giving Chris a stomach ache lately. So he stayed.

"What if you could--" JC's mouth snapped shut, and his lips twisted, and he started again. "I found out I could do something. Um. Change things - like, well, myself. I can change myself, if I... concentrate. I just. _Push_."

"So, this." Chris' fingers flexed and stroked gingerly at JC's wrist.

"No, no." JC bit his lips, and Chris shuddered, because how could he stand to touch himself? "Not-- It's not that I change _me_. It's like. I change what people see. Feel."

"So, it--?" Chris' fingers stroked with more pressure, encircled the bird-like bones, focused. The bones reshaped, just a fraction.

JC's eyes cleared, dulled.

"Isn't real."

* * *

It wasn't perfect - just the faintest bit off, because the sun didn't hit his cheekbones right. The beams seemed to sink into JC's skin instead of bouncing off, sliding down to coat the curve of his mouth.

And Chris wondered if JC had molded this new self out of rubber.

And Chris wondered how he could have ever not known, because now it was all he could see.

* * *

JC padded cautiously into the front section, staggering a little as the bus rumbled over pot holes. He skated Justin's legs, looking down, and slid into Chris' lap. His long legs folded around Chris' thighs, and his hands knotted behind Chris' neck, and he pressed his nose against Chris' throat.

Chris was raising up tensed hands to shove at the center of JC's chest, smacking him backwards onto the ground, when he felt a ripple. Layers melting off. His hands palms folded around JC's elbows instead.

"Why," Chris whispered later, mouth pressed close but not touching JC's ear, when JC's eyelids fluttered against his neck and he made slurred little _I'm awake_ sounds that vibrated at the dip of Chris' collarbone. "Doesn't seem like you're even enjoying it."

JC shrugged.

* * *

The silence started in, worming its way between them, and Chris could almost forget, because as long as the words weren't there, spoken aloud, then it didn't have to be real.

The reasoning was working, sifting broken stretched strands in his brain and smoothing them back into place.

Rationalization was a beautiful thing, and it was hot and piping underneath his skin. Chris was going to be okay, because there were logical concrete explanations for all of this - he was sure of it.

He was so absolutely certain that it took him weeks to notice the headaches. Long enough to wonder how long they'd been going on, then _stop_ wondering - because he didn't want to know.

Chris would only fit together bits of jagged pieces, afterwards. After JC shook, rattling his coffee cup against the table, and dropping it - shards of earthware across the hotel dining room, chunks and slivers everywhere. He shook, and his chair tilted, and he barely caught himself on his knees.

"Oh god, I'm. Sorry, Sorry. I'm fine," JC mumbled, and pressed the back of his hand against his forehead - face composed and glowing and without a crease - and sat back up at the table. He pulled over some contracts, and began to scan, and no one even looked over twice.

Except Chris, who believed him, then, about everything _but_ that.

* * *

"You're killing yourself, aren't you?" he said, and sounded pretty much as pissed as he felt. Which was a lot.

JC walked stiffly towards the back, knocked on the bathroom door - no one inside - and said, "You're, um, totally insane," before snapping it quickly shut behind him.

"Oh, and I suppose this is all just a big coincidence?" Chris jiggled the lock with a tilt to the right, lifted, and shoved.

JC was sitting on the shower edge, head in his hands. He was breathing deep, and shivering just a little - bringing forth vague images of a wounded bird, limping slowly across the grass with a long twisted wing.

The wing was speckled brown, and trailed feathers in its wake.

So Chris couldn't really help but slide across the enamel to press his thigh against JC's, allowing a too smooth cheek to slip down his shirt and rest between his thigh and stomach. He didn't think he'd be able to card fingers through JC's silk-not-silk hair. but he did.

Because JC was crying.

His face was serene, Madonna in repose, but Chris knew better - he **knew** \- because he could feel the just-a-little-sticky wetness sink through his jeans and coat his skin - cold and clammy. Moisture falling from the sky, from no where, and hitting Chris' leg with faint dull taps. Tears sliding through the mask.

"I'm scared," JC said, and his voice was damp, and clicked almost.

Chris was scared too, but he didn't think it would help to share that, and he was pretty sure that JC already knew.

"Chris," JC whispered, but not like a question, and twisted his body, loose, and dropped his knees to the floor.

JC murmured it again, against Chris' zipper, and rubbed his lips against the metal, parting them to mouth the outline of Chris' cock.

Chris found empty lungs, and gulped nothing nothing and tightened his fingers in JC's hair because it was _good_.

And then started thinking again.

He fumbled, cursed, and clutched at JC's shoulders, yanking him back onto his heels. Breathing was happening again, which was good, but JC's skin was shivering underneath his palms, and he snapped at Chris' fingers - snapped and then shifted, licking at them light and precise, kittenish.

"JC. JC, _don't_."

But he didn't stop, lips making little eager dips into the air at Chris' retreating hands, and Chris couldn't take it, couldn't watch, and gathered muscles in his back. Pushed.

JC's pants shrieked against tile as he slammed down hard and slid back to the sink.

Chris stood and looked straight ahead, into the mirror. He watched himself not smile, and felt like stone. "I'm not gonna fucking save you. I'm nobody's fucking savior."

"You--" JC panted, drawing breath in harsh and quick. "Chris--"

Chris bent quickly down - couldn't hear his name anymore, not like that - and crushed a palm to JC's lips.

"Don't make this about me," he said. "It's about you."

* * *

JC took to wearing less - thin filmy things that stretched thinner across his chest and pants that dipped down to offer a flash of hipbone. His lips had a permanent glisten, and his hair was tangled - hand sifted, as if freshly-fucked. The pants molded themselves like a second skin as he crawled across the bus floor to curl into the couch. He tended to crawl a lot, when Chris was in the room.

JC shot sideways glances and waited for Chris to tense, to cough, to regret. And he seemed certain, so certain that the Chris was cracking inside.

He didn't get it.

Chris had no desire for that body at all.

* * *

If the shadows banked in slope of the door just right, and Chris squinted, and paused, he could see lines creasing at the corner of JC's eyes. If he watched long enough, he'd see the wince.

It was usually after a crowd that JC's neck would twitch, his hands darting up to the arch of his forehead. The twitch would roll out, down, and he would sway to and fro - a feather batted by gusts of wind. Chris thought, maybe, that something would burst, someday. Chris would be signing small slips of paper over and over, passing them back and down the line and smiling until his face hurt, and there'd be a cry. And JC wouldn't be popping back up, shaky but ready to become more lies. Maybe he'd slide back down the wall, crimson blooming from his ears.

One time Chris caught the coffee cup before it hit the floor. With surprising regularity, he narrowly rescued speakers. But JC was getting better, on the ball; he dropped mainly pens, and picked them up himself.

* * *

" _Damn_ , boy," Joey said, and attempted to lift JC up by his head, grinning back at half-hearted struggles and flushed cheeks. "Lookin' good."

JC laughed, and jabbed fingers into Joey's ribs.

Chris thought he looked tired.

* * *

When he heard the glass shatter, Chris was sure it was another of those headaches, and he clicked the television volume up and up. He really didn't want to know what JC had broken now.  
Except there was a shrill creak of metal on glass, and a thump, and things shattered again. And Chris had to wonder what the hell he was doing back there. And he remembered, fuck, JC was going to wake Justin up.

It was not the headaches.

Light slanted through the bathroom window, glancing off the cracked mirror, sending little spirals of rainbow across the room whenever shards bent to gravity and crumbled to the counter.

JC had struck it with his fist, it seemed. Repeatedly. And then he'd used a bowl.

"Uh. What's going on?"

Chris said, and because there wasn't much else to say. He clenched his belly, _laugh laugh_ , but couldn't.

JC didn't turn, maybe didn't hear. He pressed two fingers to his left cheek, trailing lightly down the softly jutting bone.

"It's funny," JC said, in a clear crisp tone. "I can't feel this part. It's numb." He chuckled, and pressed harder into the skin. "No feeling at all - like it's dead." Ten of his eyes met Chris' in the kaleidoscope mirror. "I felt it happening. I-- I pushed too hard." JC's fist smacked loudly down against the enamel. "Blow out."

"You can't--" Chris stopped.

JC could do whatever he wanted, and would, and Chris was wasting his words. Chris thought JC might not be right in the head. And well, yeah, he probably was pretty fucked up to _begin_ with, to start this thing.

Burning slender fingers crawled up

Chris' arm, clutched the back of his neck. "Don't, don't say it," JC breathed. "Just-- tell me it'll be all right. Fucking **promise** me." The thin voice wavered, hummed brokenly at Chris' ear.

And Chris couldn't say anything.

Couldn't look at him, couldn't see that pretty smile.

* * *

He thought there were more numbpatches -- looked like maybe one over JC's eye, another at the corner of his mouth. But he couldn't know, really, because JC knew better than to touch them in public.

And they were never alone anymore.

* * *

He dreamed he was encased in slick perfumed water, thrashing arms violently up, and back, and to his sides. He was drowning, and the liquid was coating his lungs until they dripped with it. Soggy sponges that smelled of violets and springtime.

"Chris?"

The dream broke, like a fever, and he woke to JC's solemn face, JC's hand on his shoulder.

"Chris?" JC said again, and his nails dug into Chris' skin - just one sharp moment.

He collapsed across Chris' chest.

* * *

"Hi." Chris smiled down at slowly blinking eyes.

"Um. Hi," JC said back, and tried to lift his head, and couldn't.

There were little tubes strung across his chest, and blankets pulled tight. Chris leaned down, and made them tighter. "Don't try to move." He ran the side of his hand over a cheek damp with sweat, and pushed hair back from JC's temple. It was dull, a little shaggy, and stuck to his fingers.

"I--" JC's neck muscles strained, shoved. He gritted his teeth, pulling lips back to reveal a strong line of yellowed white, split with a slight gap.

Nothing.

"It's gone," Chris said, even though JC must know that already. He just wanted to say it out loud. Make it real, like JC.

Strong like JC, who was forcing calm.

Chris kissed his jaw.

"I. I can't. JC mumbled, and stopped, and sucked in air. "I can't do this."

"Yes, you can," Chris said, because it was true.

"Not. Not like. So much fucking," JC's breath rattled. His gaze hit upon Chris', and darted down. "I just can't go home like this. like. everything."

Chris' rubbed his thumb over JC's lips, chapped and red, and then lifted it, running it lightly back over his own. "I can go with you."

JC's eyes darted up, wide as they needed to be for justice - to taste just a small piece of Chris' surprise.

"Um. I. I thought."

"It's okay," Chris said, licked at JC's mouth, kissed both corners. Smiled again, because it brought a cleaner kind of gloss to JC's eyes.

They were gonna be all right.

end.

 _Too much but never enough  
Tear it up and watch it fall_

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics: "Driven Like Snow" and "Neverland" by The Sisters Of Mercy  
> Note 1: An answer to The Waxjism.net Songfic Challenge, requiring author to work NSYNC song lyrics into their story. I employed three lines from "Falling"  
> Note 2: Inspired, oddly and randomly, by Stephen King's fabulous novel "Fire Starter" - which I haven't read for years. Very, very loosely inspired. Heh.


End file.
